ekleksographia #1

upon returning

 

lights             

water

and signals from afar

 

if we could unbecome our voices

if we could reveal no new stories

 

a general sense of rebirth told

through book after book

 

these words are leaves

falling

 

---

The Dense Marine

1.

 

below our joys   

below the thrill

of the summer sun  

of companions on the bow      

of light fanning across clear water

the shadowy depths remain

 

2. 

 

“we have begun our descent”

 

our instruments and

                        degrees pressed

              they ache to guide us

 

“shale, mineral particulates,

  sediments, resuspension,

                          valley-ridge, bottom, inshore,

  nearshore”

 

the circuitry shifts with

each moment

 

“transient kinetics, rapid morphological

  change, memory, bone regeneration”

 

we are always beginning

 

3.

 

we understand how to

adjust the balance       how to

turn the screw

                        and all the while our songs

            swing through still air

 

                        “sediment covered glacial drifts,

                        tills, erosional remnants, bedrock

core, bedrock ridges, channel”

 

“i’ve come to explore soil residues”

 

around the bottom

we look

            for the beyond

 

4.

 

in sorting through the charts,

in directing the line of descent,

the bone changes, the cells—

the quick and the dead—

replace this motion with that

 

            “matrix formation, calcification,

ossification, modeling, nutritional

configuration”

 

the layers of darkness

and light are interrupted by objects

drifting from the surface

                        and fins darting in chase

 

the descent intensifies in complexity

with circuitry leading in multiple directions

and new elements introduced into the flow

 

            “beach samples, traces of mercury and

            cyanide, urban and industrial watershed,

            sandstone, crystalline rock aquifers”

 

we could not be considered swimming

though we remain below.

 

5.

 

we arise to breathe

                        to forget

            playing with a stanchion

            tightening a halyard

                        yet the call to know

                                    the bottom remains.